Water, water everywhere .............
Dear Member,
We are writing to update you on the playing pitches at the club and in light of recent and unprecedented weather as well as some decisions that the Executive Committee have made to ensure the club is sustainable for many year to come.
Context
As you will be aware we recently finished the 'Pitch Project'. The aim was to increase the amount of space we had to both train and play rugby. This included new drainage across the 2nd pitch, an additional 70m x 30m artificial training area with flood lights and a new M&Y pitch - the 3rd pitch at the very top of clubs playing fields. The project has completed and please take time if you have not already to go and see it - The 3rd pitch is just bedding in so won’t be available for use until the Spring of this year (2026)
These improvements have significantly improved the playing pitches we will have and are much needed to support a club that has grown by over 300% in the last 3 years, which in itself is fantastic news!
However the reality is that climate change is impacting our ability to play rugby. In the 2023/24 season we saw incredible deluges of rain that impacted match days and several games were cancelled that season and the 2nd pitch became a quagmire in just a few months, as it became our main training area to protect the main pitch, which now has at least 4 to 5 games being played on it every weekend. We genuinely believed that this may have been a unique year of rainfall and how wrong we were as in the 2024/25 season saw a repeat of the same situation.
When we thought it couldn’t get any worse. This season 2025/26 it has again been recorded as the wettest January and February on record with above average rainfall nationwide (117%) and 30+ consecutive days of rainfall.
Impact of weather
As members and supporters you will already know that we have had to cancel a number of fixtures at home this season and have had a number of weekends where NO rugby has been able to played at the club.
This has a number of significant impacts;
· Our commercial revenue requirements have been hugely impacted - with No bar revenue & no socials over consecutive weekends - so there is no profit which we rely upon to run the club and turn the lights on.
· We incur additional costs as teams try to rearrange matches at other venues e.g. To use the artificial at Tigers costs £180 per game.
· We see lower attendance to socials and matches as members and supporters become confused as to what’s on or off and disengaged on attendance.
The outcome
We need to ensure we play rugby at the club as often as possible, 365 days of the year and 24/7 especially as we have match play flood lights.
The solution
We need to install an RFU compliant 5G pitch as the New Main Pitch moving forward.
We understand that emotions will run high on the decision to attempt to change what is arguably and has been one of the best grass roots, grass rugby pitches in the county and beyond. We all love the grass pitch that many have been privileged to play on over the decades but the decision to change is not taken lightly.
Sustainability
With the number of teams that now play at the club resulting in 5 to 6 matches each weekend, the club has to be realistic and find a more sustainable way of playing this number of competitive games with currently just one full size grass pitch. An all-weather surface will facilitate this and truly provide the all ear round pitch availability we need. The new artificial pitch will be constructed in line with discussions and consultations with RFU as to being compliant - these discussions are under way at present and we will update on the progress regularly so all members are informed of the progress. Ultimately this will allow us to play as many games as required every weekend going forward which will ensure our commercial revenues are where they need to be for a club of our size and support our continued growth. We would hope that additional external hire and other fixtures would also increase revenues so the new 5G surface becomes a self-fulfilling investment into the future.
Project Management
We are not unfamiliar with taking on large projects and in the last 5 years we have delivered some significant major projects across the club. The gym & equipment, clubhouse improvements, match play flood lights, a new astro training area and a further 3rd grass playing pitch as detailed above.
With reference to the flood lights when we had them installed in 2022, we upgraded the specification and LUX capacity, as a future proofing measure. What does this mean?
The RFU require 200 lux for competitive matches (Levels 2-5) and 100 lux for training. For lower levels of rugby (Levels 6-12), 100 lux is generally acceptable for both matches and training.
Our Flood lights provide 200 Lux of illumination which means we are very sustainable for years to comeshould our teams progress up the leagues which we hope they do.
In delivering all these projects there are two significant cost considerations. The total budget costs which we have on all projects managed well but there is also the time factor costs of individuals and volunteers that have delivered them. We recognise the later comes with the higher cost of burning out volunteers as we have experienced before so to this end, the project management, consultancy and all works required to deliver a perfect playing area will be managed by externally appointed professionals and budgeted for accordingly it also provides us with more accountability with such a large investment which is not fair on a volunteer.
Which finally leads us nicely on to budgets. Whilst we have previously mentioned the projects we have already delivered, they can only be delivered with additional grant funding revenue into the club they are simply not possible with weekly bar revenue or membership. We have over the last 5 years raised more than £400k of external funding so we have a good track record of both obtaining grant money and more importantly delivering every penny of funded money back into the club. Funders love to see this as it shows a good track record of success and delivery which ultimately is what they focus on.
The artificial grass pitch project is the most ambitious project to date and we are under no illusions of the amount of funding required to deliver this. Whilst we are currently not in a position to share cost schedules or budgets, we know that this will be an investment of £600k+
The very good news is -as a club and committee we have always set our sights very high in terms of developing one of the best grass roots clubs in the area. Work had already begun on future projects like this and funding a few years back for when we reached this stage. More recently grant funding applications and more advanced work on this grant funding has started to become a reality and whilst we are not in a position to detail these funds we are extremely positive that we have some fantastic opportunities and commitments on funding already, as well as some new opportunities we are working on now with previous grant funders and new ones.
We have set a very ambitious timeline of delivering the 5G pitch within 18-24 moths but we are confident that we can so.
We ask that you the members, supporters and the wider family and friends of the North get behind this project and continue in the meantime to support the club in any way you can be it volunteering to coach, referee, team manage, become a first aider, work in the maintenance team, bar or kitchen, attend as many games and social events as you can or even to play rugby yourself!
Let’s do this #ONENORTHNATION
We will continue to update you all throughout the season.
Thank you
Cheltenham North RFC
Executive Committee.
Mike Scourfield
Chairman
Nick Townsend
President
